The Right is Dark and Full of Terrors

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Only one man knows what it takes to stop the influx of illegal aliens. That man is the senior senator from wherever the hell Metropolis is.

Alexander “Lex” Luthor was elected to the U.S. Senate for the State of Ne..Ka..*mumble, mumble* in 2012. Senator Luthor is a passionate fighter for government small enough to fit in a woman’s uterus, fighting for the rights of billionaires, and destroying illegal aliens. Despite never holding elected office, his victory in both the Republican primary and the general election has been hailed by the Washington Post as “the biggest upset of 2012 . . . a true grassroots victory against very long odds.”

As a partner at a prestigious national law firm, he led the firm’s U.S. Supreme Court and national Appellate Litigation practice. He has authored more than 80 U.S. Supreme Court briefs and argued 43 cases, including nine before the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing for the deportation of all illegal aliens. From 2004-2009, he taught U.S. Supreme Court Litigation as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Metropolis University School of Law.

Lex Luthor was born and raised in the poverty stricken area of Metropolis known as Suicide Slums, the child of abusive parents, with a fierce desire to better himself. As a teenager, young Lex’s parents died mysteriously, making Lex the beneficiary of large life insurance policy he had taken out in their names, and went on to found his own company Lexcorp.

“I am against amnesty for illegal aliens. We need to strongly enforce the immigration laws that already exist.”

“How can we protect homeland security unless the government stops the invasion of illegal aliens?

“We should not be talking about any kind of pathway to citizenship if we were serious about solving the problem of illegal immigration. … We should only be talking about securing our borders,”

“These illegal aliens are criminals and we need to treat them as such. I’m not in favor of giving amnesty to anybody who has broken the law.”

Gov. Paul LePage is trying to out-malarkey the Southern Republicans, and he’s doing a damn fine job at it.

Where has Gov. Paul LePage (R-ME) been all my life? Where have Republicans been hiding this gem of a man? Oh, that’s right. He’s been in the frozen north. So let’s get up to speed on Paul LePage.

1)LePage’s parents are French-Canadian. Is every far-right Republican secretly Canadian? His first language is French…I mean, Freedom. He speaks fluent Freedom.

2)He suggested that after being elected Governor, newspaper headlines would read, “LePage Tells Obama To Go To Hell”. So, you see he has the required amount of respect for the office of The President: none.

3)He hired his daughter as assistant to his chief-of-staff. She makes $41,000/year plus benefits. School teachers in Maine make $30,000 and police officers make $36,000. Then, he hired his brother-in-law to do God knows what.

4)He proposed lifting the ban on BPA (dangerous chemical in plastics), because regulating stuff is communist. I think that was the rationale. Then he said this, “The only thing that I’ve heard is if you take a plastic bottle and put it in the microwave and you heat it up, it gives off a chemical similar to estrogen. So the worst case is some women may have little beards….and we don’t want that.”

5)He said this IRS is the “new gestapo”. Meh. Comparing the Obama Administration to the Third Reich is soooo 2011. “He’s a racist” is the new attack line; get on board, Paul.

6)”Gov. Paul LePage told a group of Republicans last week that President Obama “hates white people,” according to two state lawmakers who say they heard the remark directly.” There we go: Jews and Blacks, that train is never late. Let me elaborate, LePage claims that Pres. Obama never discusses his multi-racial heritage because he hates white people. I presume he means white people such as his mother.

7)And to round off the Republican Ass-hattery, we have *drum roll* a rape reference. “LePage stated that Sen. Jackson ‘claims to be for the people but he’s the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline”. I think what we’re supposed to infer from this is that Gov. LePage is going to rape you (politically) but he’s going to at least lube up (politically).

8) “On August 9, 2013, while using an F-35 Lightning II simulator at the Pratt & Whitney aircraft engine plant in North Berwick, LePage was asked what he wanted to do in the simulator; he stated ‘I want to find the Portland Press Herald building and blow it up.” …Cause all that reading and carrying on ain’t fer the good white folks of Maine. I bet Obama reads newspapers, so LePage has to be against them.

Is this what it would be like to have Rush Limbaugh as a governor? Does he require his female staffers to keep a photo on file? Does he keep those photos in a binder?

Instead of shutting down the government, Republicans want to torch the entire economy. Do we still have to pretend that they have useful ideas about governance?

“This is like going from crazy to crazier. Threatening to shut down the government is like playing with fire. Threatening to default on our debt obligations is the economic equivalent of playing with nuclear weapons. For the cooler heads in the GOP, this has to be raising all sorts of alarm bells.” — Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), quoted by the Washington Post,

Republicans have mostly abandoned their wet dreams of defunding the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) through a budget bill. They’re now making a tactical retreat to fortify, in their minds, a more defensible position: the debt ceiling. They’ve held the country hostage using the debt ceiling before, so they figure they’ll have another go at it. In 2011, they pretty much caved. In 2012, they caved. Is there any reason to believe that they won’t cave again? Not really.

So, if we know that they’re just chest-pounding and posturing for the base in the run-up to the 2014 midterm elections, why does it matter? Well, think of it this way; if Bill Gates somehow lost his wallet and asks you to borrow twenty bucks, that’s a pretty safe loan. Bill Gates loses more money between the couch cushions than I will make in my entire life. The United States is the same way; countries and corporations don’t loan out $17 trillion not expecting to get that back. So, every time the Republicans in the House of Representatives bluster about not raising the debt ceiling and not paying back our debts, they create instability in the global economy. They cast doubt on the ability/willingness of the United States to pay its debts.

For this reason, the U.S. credit rating was downgraded after the 2011 debt ceiling standoff; no one is quite as sure that we’re good for it. So, instead of fighting the evils of increasing debt (whatever they may be, Right-wingers have never told me), this sort of brinkmanship actually makes the debt worse. We’re still going to borrow money, we just have to borrow it at ever- increasing interest rates, because Republicans like to pretend we’re not going to pay it back. The United States has been in debt consistently and without ceasing since 1836; in 1836, we were only out of debt for about a year. When the Constitution was ratified in 1789, we were in debt.

Side Note: Debt is about 101% of GDP. That’s not great, but it’s also not that bad. Consider that the UK debt is, supposedly, around 413% of GDP.

The Republican Circus has been a mess for a while; probably since the Clinton Derangement Syndrome set in around 1992. They’ve sunk to new lows with their official policy of We Don’t Like The Black Guy. The Republican Circus is horribly over-staffed with clowns and the only lion in the whole shebang seems to be John McCain playing the role of the Cowardly Lion. Personally, I feel bad for John Boehner; I know he wishes for the good ol’ days of Republican politics which was just chain-smoking, disenfranchising women and minorities, and accepting kickbacks from corporate sponsors. Now, he’s got this crop of freshman legislators who just want to sink the ship because their opponents will drown, too. He’s forced to act as crazy as they are while preventing them from actually accomplishing anything. All the while, he has to prevent Democrats from actually accomplishing anything as well. You know what, I don’t feel bad for him at all. He may be the most useless member of Congress now that I think about it. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rand Paul (R-KY) and their ilk want to destroy the government from within. At least they believe in something.

Instead of nominating candidates that appeal to a wide variety of Americans, Republicans decide they want to appeal to voters who already agree with them. Voters who listen to the radio during the middle of the workday.

If you thought the 2008 Republican Presidential Primary was a circus, put on your waders, because the elephant dung is everywhere. On MaddowBlog, Steve Benen talks about why that is:

“Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus isn’t backing down from his threats to cut NBC and CNN out of hosting 2016 presidential primary debates, unless they agree to scrap plans to air specials on Hillary Clinton. I think this has more to do with Priebus wanting fewer debates, and he’s using the Clinton productions as a pretense, but he’s nevertheless not budging.”

Okay. Less debates is probably in the best interest of the Republican Party. The less the public is exposed to glassy-eyed Stepford candidates and Southern Baptist Ayatollahs, the more likely they are to be fooled by one of these right-wing svengalis.

Tell us, GOP strategists, who you want to be the moderators. Who will save the Republican Party from straying further and further to the irreconcilable Right? Washington Examiner has the scoop:

“Miffed that their candidates were singled out for personal questions or CNN John King’s “This or That,” when he asked candidates quirky questions like “Elvis or Johnny Cash,” GOP insiders tell Secrets that they are considering other choices, even a heavyweight panel of radio bigs Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin.”

Oh. Good. God. Limbaugh, Hannity, and Levin? Is this real-life or this fantasy? I’ve had dreams like this, but I never thought they would come true. This just proves that if you eat well, pay your taxes, are kind to animals, then sometimes the universe sees fit to bless you.

Limbaugh. Hannity. Levin. The list gets more right-wing the farther right it goes on the page. Limbaugh is a bloviating neanderthal, but he knows that and he plays it up for his audience. There’s a small chance that he’ll ask some entertaining questions, most of them softballs, to the candidates. I think that for all of his blustering and chest-thumping, that he’s actually a company man and he would try to do what was in the best interest of the GOP. That being, nominating sensible candidates who can actually appeal to someone other than Limbaugh, Hannity, and Levin.

Hannity. Hannity’s a fool. He’ll ask the kinds of questions that Michelle Malkin thinks are hard-hitting. How will you repeal Obamacare? Which brown people will we kill next? Is Obama’s presidential library a mosque? He’s an ideological purist who calls himself a “registered conservative”, but my heart says that he’s voted straight Republican Party ticket in every election. Either way, he’s too dumb to be trusted with the microphone. I don’t think he knows what moderation is because he has so completely lost sight of the center. Limbaugh may be the loudest, but due to the revolving door of wingnuts, dingbats, and dumbasses, Hannity is the ringleader of the Republican circus. He defiles the English language four hours a day, five days a week creating a firm core to the echo chamber.

Levin. Levin would sink the ship on purpose. He’s a pirate. If the RNC were stupid enough to let Mark Levin ask the questions, they would never see the inside of the Oval Office again. Levin is on the Republican ship because he hates the left-wing, but what they don’t realize is that he’s ordering a full-speed attack on Democrats, damn the torpedoes; if they don’t capitulate, then he’ll just sink the Republican ship, too. Mark Levin is an ideological purist in a way that gains the respect of religious fundamentalists. He is a fundamentalist, praying to the U.S. Constitution. Any slight against it is heresy. Levin is Republican’s pet wolf that they think is a dog.

From Limbaugh’s gruff cigar-gravelled sexism, to Hannity’s hair-on-fire search for the “truth” about Obama’s “scandals”, to Levin’s hellfire-and-brimstone screeching, the American people can’t lose. Journalists’ careers will be made off these debates. Comedians will no longer have to write jokes. Jon Stewart’s hair will stop graying and return to brown. The oceans will cease to rise. The polar ice caps will cease to melt. Nickelback will cease to exist. Lastly, a Democrat will win in 2016 by simple virtue of being sane.

This Just in from the Conservative Perpetual Rage Machine: Black President makes people hate black people. Or white people. Or…hell, I don’t even know.

The Right-Wing attack machine never sleeps; the monolith runs on hatred, misdirection, and falsehoods the way a Ford F-250 runs on gasoline: inefficiently and constantly demanding more. Rick Santorum (R-B.S.) pays his pounds of flesh to the Conservative Juggernaut by keeping close watch over who puts what where; he spends his every waking moment thinking about gay sex. Sens.Ted Cruz (R-FL) and Rand Paul (R-KY) combine their efforts in a frat boy menage a trois with low-income families playing the role of the blackout drunk object of their own frustrations. Rep. Mike Lee (R-UT) runs a very simple ‘I don’t trust that black guy’ operation; think of it as the George Zimmerman offense. The list goes on, but you see how they operate, perpetual outrage and perceived persecution; if all of the demons (Democrats) hate you because you’re on the side of the angels, there’s no time to consider what exactly you believe.

Well, Persecution Squadron has assembled into attack formation and they’re honing in on one of their most onerous positions. They’re blaming Pres. Obama for “dividing America along racial lines.” The standard talking point is that Pres. Obama, by mentioning Trayvon Martin and describing the life of a black man, has created a racial tension in the United States that would not otherwise exist. This level of bullshit goes deep. You have to remember Rand Paul’s speech to historically-black Howard University to fully grasp the type of smoke-and-mirrors they’re trying to pull off. Here’s a pretty good recap of the speech, but I’ve got some excerpts. Please, read on:

So, the whitewashing of conservative history requires an end to racial tension some time in the recent past. If I had to guess, they will place this colorblind utopia squarely during Reagan’s first term. You remember Ronald Reagan, right? The man who completely ignored Apartheid in South Africa? Yep, that Reagan.

So, once the racial utopia is established, it’s absurd to believe that Trayvon Martin was killed because the color of his skin made him scary. In this neverland, Trayvon was killed because he was threatening, or dressed wrongly, or out too late, or too violent, or on the wrong side of the street, or because Mars was in retrograde, or what-the-hell-ever. He was definitely not killed, because black males in this country are considered to be dangerous.

Enter Barack Obama saying that Trayvon Martin was targeted much as other black males are targeted. Well this just doesn’t fit because, as you recall, President Abraham Reagan freed the non-violent first-time offenders. Err. Something like that. It’s disgusting to me that the GOP would try to erase so much of history. Here is Rep. Steve King (R-IA) explaining how the black guy in office is making everybody more racist.

It’s a baseless, gutless, spineless, completely disingenuous attack line even for the Conservative Malarkey Machine. The first Black president didn’t divide Americans along racial lines, that happened earlier; it was called the damned Civil War. America has never been more divided than when it was literally divided. Actually, you know what, I’m wrong. Americans were not divided during Civil War, because slaves were not Americans any more than your dog (no disrespect to you, I know you would never treat your dog the way slaves were treated). Perhaps, it was most divided in 1963, when Gov. George Wallace (D-AL) stood in the schoolhouse door to prevent black students from registering. When four little girls were killed by white supremacists’ bomb in a church basement in Alabama; in 1999, when Amadou Diallo was shot nineteen times on his own front porch. The list goes on. The truth is that the United States has been downright cruel to women and minorities for a long time. So, if conservatives are having histrionics because the white male power structure, as Bill O’Reilly pointed out, is disappearing then that’s on them. Shining a light at the roaches scurrying in your trash didn’t produce them. Shattering the stranglehold that the privileged have had on power for 200 years didn’t create the divide; it’s bridging that gap, and we all know that inequality doesn’t die peacefully. It dies loudly with much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments.

That’s completely asinine. Anyone with the good sense God gave a goose knows that increasing spending at exorbitant levels while reducing spending results in debt. Money fleeing the economy with no benefit to Americans creates a recession. You see, the GOP has become obsessed with the debt, but the difference is that spending now (at record levels) goes to the benefit of Americans. Improving American lives should be the job of the government. Which brings me to the GOP hysteria of the moment, the Affordable Care Act; you may know it as Obamacare.

My friends and I are all approaching twenty-six or we’ve already reached that foreboding age. You see, that’s the age when the government thinks we should be the masters of our own healthcare fate. What galls me is the amount of twentysomethings who have fallen under the sway of libertarian charlatans like Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX). The list of Right-wing nihilists goes on, and I know young people who have willingly become water-carriers for their brand of pirate libertarianism.

Right Wing politicians in the first decade of the Twenty-First century wrote bad checks with our futures as collateral. The response? The Republican party tacked hard to the right and rode a wave of geriatric astro-turf grassroots to even greater heights (lows?). Social Security recipients, medicare recipients, and those already comfortable adopted a political stance of “got mine, to hell with you”. This is selfish, pessimistic, but pretty par for the course on the right side of the spectrum. Somehow, they convinced a bunch of young people who are soon to have the economy heaved onto their shoulders that they don’t deserve the same benefits and promises that the previous generation had.